There and Back Again...Rwanda

So I want to take you all back. I went on a little trip within my trip to start of this whole experience. We spent one night witho our host family and then left for Rwanda the second day after arriving in Uganda. Unfortunately this will probably be less exciting because I'm posting so much after the trip, but I journaled about a lot of it so that will hopefully help the memory. We were their for about 8 days so I'm going to go day by day.

8/30
So we left Uganda at 5:30am and drove for 13 hours to get to a resort/hotel spot in Gahini, Rwanda as our first stop. On the way I played a lot of cribbage against Kurty and hung out with our group of 14 IMME students and 4 Ugandan students (the rest of our American group went in a different bus for their own trip). That was one way to get us all to bond quickly...shove us all onto an 20 passenger bus for 13 hours. The border crossing was really interesting because we all got off the bus and went through the exiting and entering lines for each country and with how lines work here I'm sure you can guess how long it took. It was funny to see all the kids as we'd drive past pull double takes when they saw all the muzungu's on the bus and scream and double waved at us with all their might! When we got to our destination, our group was split up into smaller groups because the following day we were going to church and we had to have one person preach, one give a testimony, and have a couple songs prepared to present. i was supposed to preach, but our group got dissolved into another because our church couldn't take us after all and I was sort of glad because I had no idea what I was going to do.
8/31
I loved my church experience! They had four different choirs (woman, young children, teens, and an older mixed choir) and they all sang at different times during the service. We couldn't understand what they were saying exactly, but some of the tunes were familiar. Each one of their songs included a specific motion to them and they would go on for a while just repeating the same lines. It was really neat. We also joined them in dancing in the middle of the sanctuary sometimes when the choirs were singing, which was a blast! Kurty did her finger point dance and they thought it was hilarious and copied her so we think it will be the new dance craze sweeping the nation! We also sang our songs for them and it was probably one of my favorite moments the whole morning! And this is sort of uncharacteristic of me so please be amazed :) We sang My Redeemer Lives and Kurty and I dueted the bridge where one line says "I'm dancing on this mountain top, to see you kingdom come" and we each did a little dance and the congregation exploded in laughter at us and had us sing it again later in the service because they liked it so much. It was so fun to have them clap along and smile. Afterwards we had lunch at the pastor's house so all in all we were there for about 5 hours.
Later that night we heard from one of our translators who was about our age tell us his story of how the genocide effected him. His parents were killed and he was almost killed and at one point even went to a Hutu to have the guy kill him because he was sick of running and hiding. He also shared about how the man who killed his parents came and asked for forgiveness and he eventually granted it and now hangs out with him sometimes. It was an incredible story.
9/1
We left for Kigali (capital) on this day and went to the Rwandan Genocide Memorial. I don't know what to say about all of this or how to get across to you what I felt. I have a hard time processing all of it, but it was incredible to see how things can be so ugly, but at the same time highlight such incredible human compassion in the stories of the rescuers. It was also hard to think about how much psychological damage was done in their country.
9/2
We stayed at a Catholic convent of sorts and it was really nice. Complete with a shower that spat out hot water! Ok, so the shower head didn't work, but we were able to scrunch ourselves under a faucet about 2 feet off the ground that offered a nice warm trickle :) We went to a memorial that immortalized 10,000 people who were massacred while taking refuge in a church. The pastor went and got the band of killers to come and murder them and when they got there many of the people were already dead because so many were smashed into the church. The memorial had all of the clothes piled everywhere in the church and they also had skulls out as well. There was a tomb of sorts that had coffins in them that held 30 or more skeletons in them of the victims. I have a hard time knowing how to process any of these types of things, but later on that day we heard from victims and killers who had reconciled with each other and were working towards further reconciliation. Hearing the stories of a woman who had forgiven the murderer of her family and his repentance and shame for what he had done helped me to process it in a way because I saw the conclusion and God's redemption working in this post-tramatic era. We also heard from a man named Chris Page who I think has been my favorite speaker we have heard from. He is a missionary from the UK and God called him to start businesses and he had never had any experience doing any of that. He said this quote in regards to that that I really liked, "God does not call the qualified, he qualifies those he calls." I really liked the message in that and his story was great. He talked a lot about being a person who when they see a problem in their community they ask God to show them what to do. He told the story of a man named Arthur who saw a problem in his Irish community of alcoholism and prayed for God to show him what to do about it and God told him to make a beer that would be healthier, not as alcoholic, cheaper, and would satisfy. He came up with the beer Guinness and it really did stem the problem and became the national drink of Ireland. There is more to his story and other things that he did. His story probably ranks in my top 5!
9/3
We traveled to Gisenyi today, which is right near the Congolese border. It should have taken 4 hours, but we got lost in the mountain roads and it took more like 7 hours to get there. The views were incredible though and we all made the best of it. We stopped at a remote village to use some latrines and I'm pretty sure many of the villagers had never seen a white person before because as it spread that we were there we could hear the kids and people shouting muzungu and see them sprinting from every direction to see us until by the time that everyone who had to go had gone we were surrounded by a mass of people. Let me also mention the latrine...it had no door and people apparently didn't mind so much about aiming because it was difficult to squat without standing in poop...Kurty and I took turns trying to screen the other from the overlook of the entire village and all the people running up to see us. It was quite a hysterical adventure! When we arrived we ate supper and then heard from a woman who came with her husband who was doing micro-finance in Congo and what life was like for her. She came for her husband, but started doing things in her community to further His kingdom.
9/4
We went to Lake Kivu today and walked around on the beach for a bit until we met up with a pastor and visited the school and orphanage he had helped to set up and start. They had over 300 orphans that they help get all the way through high school. Many were orphans from the genocide. When we first got there and got off the bus a bunch of kids came and attached themselves to each of us so as we visited almost each one of us was holding an orphan and walking hand in hand with one. I was able to look into the face of those that the Bible talks about, the fatherless. We also got to watch these young girls preform traditional dance for us. After we were finished we headed back to Kigali after we got our tire fixed because we didn't quite make it out of the 7 hour mountain trip cleanly :)
9/5
We saw the hotel from Hotel Rwanda and I put that on my list of movies to see when I get home. We left for Uganda as well today and stopped at a resort on Lake Binyoini to debrief with the other group for a couple days. This place was ritzy (and I mean that in light of what we'd been to so far). It was super nice. We spent time debriefing and talking about what we had seen and heard and relaxed. We went on a boat tour of the lake and heard about each of the islands in the lake and it's history. For example, there was a tiny one that the tribes would leave pregnant, unwed, teen mothers to die because they got pregnant without being connected to a man. It was a fascinating trip. People played volleyball and we swam in the lake, which was the deepest in Africa at 6,500 feet!!! This little respite was nice to have before heading back to officially start our home stays and school. I was looking forward to getting back and getting into a routine!

Well, for better or for worse, there is my summary of Rwanda. I wish I would have written it earlier because I forget all of the humorous things that happened...but maybe it's better because then this post would have been beyond long!! Oh well!

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness . Lamentations 3:21-23